Line #64 Series/BlueLights


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3	''Blue Lights'' is a 2023 British CopShow (also PoliceProcedural) that follows three trainee police officers during their probationary period at Blackthorn police station in Belfast. Two seasons have aired in the UK.
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5	BBC has renewed the show for two more seasons.
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7	Not to be confused with the [[Series/BlueLights1966 1966 TV show]] that aired in the US.
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10	!!''Blue Lights'' provides examples of:
11	* AndThatLittleGirlWasMe: [[spoiler:Gerry]] explains that he was the "wee pal" who was with [[spoiler:Happy]] the day his father and big brother were killed by a car bomb.
12	* BigotWithABadge: How the PSNI is viewed by Catholics. One scene features Tommy looking conflicted when he sees a poster claiming that the PSNI arrests five times as many Catholics as Protestants.
13	* BoomHeadshot: [[spoiler: Jim Dixon gets this fate when he gets shot twice in the head by Craig [=McQuarrie=]]].
14	* BringMyBrownPants: [[spoiler:The station has its own [[ColorCodedForYourConvenience colour-coded threat chart]] known as "Colin's Code", with "Brown" being the highest threat level. Colin was a probationer who shat himself when he mistook kids planting fireworks under his and Gerry's patrol car for a car bomb]].
15	* CallBack:
16	** In "The Code", when Grace and Stevie show up at Angela Mackle's house to let her know that Gordy's been arrested, Angela freaks out when she sees them at the door because she thinks they're about to [[DeathNotification tell her that Gordy's dead.]] Stevie reassures her that if they were going to do something serious like that, he'd be wearing his hat. In "Love Hurts", when he and Grace have to attend a suspicious death, he puts his hat on.
17	** When Tommy and Aisling go on their first date, Tommy mentions that Aisling's grown out the undercut she had when they first met in "The Q Word".
18	* CallingTheCopsOnTheFBI: Gerry and Tommy, two response police officers, mistakenly pull over a pair of [=MI5=] operatives due to their vehicle (an older VW Passat with a new license plate) appearing suspicious.
19	* CallingYourAttacks: All the cops are required to give the warning "Armed Police" when they draw their guns, even though it's common knowledge amongst the public that PSNI officers are armed by default.
20	* CategoryTraitor: Presumably this is how the Republican factions that threatened Helen and Annie's lives view them.
21	* ChekhovsSkill: Combined with former WorkplaceAcquiredAbilities. It is mentioned in the first episode that Grace is a former social worker, who decided to become a police officer in her forties. Therefore, she is very good at de-escalation and interacting with children, teenagers and young adults to help try and get them on side.
22	* CopHater: The police are not particularly well-liked by the general public, Catholic or Protestant alike. Officers often end up leaving the scene while projectiles are being thrown at their patrol cars.
23	* CopKiller: Eoin O'Sullivan, the Dublin drug kingpin who guns down [[spoiler: Gerry]].
24	* CopKillerManhunt: After [[spoiler: Gerry]] is killed, the team go all out to find anyone who was involved with the shooting, including arresting two fleeing [=MI5=] operatives at gunpoint and taking them into custody.
25	* CowboyCop: DS Murray Canning and PC Shane Bradley, who frequently bend and sometimes break the rules in order to obtain intelligence to further their enquiries.
26	* CulturallyReligious: The homes of Catholic characters are decorated with bits of religious paraphernalia you might expect to see in a Catholic home, such as crosses or paintings of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, but none of them appear to have any strong religious convictions.
27	* DaChief: Chief Superintendent Nicola Robertson, the District Commander of the fictional Lagan District (which covers Belfast and the surrounding areas) and Jen's mother. She reports directly to the Chief Constable.
28	* DefectiveDetective: DS Murray Canning. Although he works a hard role in intelligence policing and investigates some of the worst of the worst in respect of paramilitary and criminal violence, he is still shown to be a hardass to his colleagues and an arrogant misogynist, as well as brokering unofficial agreements with sectarian criminal leaders to ensure visible crime rates remain at a lower level to not necessitate police involvement.
29	* DirtyCop: {{Downplayed\|Trope}}. All the officers regularly remove their name badges before entering situations that are likely to turn particularly violent or nasty. It's [[AmbiguousSituation unclear]] if this is to make them more difficult to identify (they still have their individual numbers on their epaulettes) or if it's so individual officers can't be clocked as having a Catholic or Protestant name depending on who they're dealing with.
30	* DisappearedDad: Rory, Gordy's dad, is apparently long dead, as James [=McIntyre=] has been paying a pension to Angela as compensation for his work for the paramilitary organisation that he and James both belonged to. Neither Cal's nor Annie's fathers are anywhere to be seen.
31	* DrillSergeantNasty: Sergeant [=McCloskey=], the stern and by-the-book instructor from Garnerville who is in charge of public order training for both new recruits and seasoned officers.
32	* DueToTheDead: The station has a photoboard commerating officers who've been killed in the line of duty.
33	* FairWeatherFriend: One of Cal's friends is very quick to openly accuse people of being racist towards Cal, even when Cal tells him to drop it. When Cal actually gets into an altercation with a police officer, [[DirtyCoward he]] [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere legs it]].
34	* FictionalCounterpart: Although the series got permission to use the actual PSNI name and branding, the police district names used throughout are fictional.
35	** The main characters, who are based in Belfast, are part of the Lagan District, a fictional version of the Belfast City District.
36	** Constable Aisling Byrne, who is based in Derry, is part of the Foyle District, a fictional version of the Derry City and Strabane District.
37	* FromCamouflageToCriminal: Lee Thompson is a former soldier, who along with Craig [=McQuarrie=] and several more of his ex-military friends begins to slowly [[spoiler: usurp the power of the existing loyalist criminal factions on the Mount Eden estate. This includes carrying out several murders and becoming involved in the drug trade]].
38	* GenericCopBadges: Inverted. Unlike many UK television shows the series actually got permission to use the real PSNI logo, uniform, branding and badges.
39	* GetOutOfJailFreeCard: After his operatives are arrested fleeing the location where [[spoiler: Gerry]] is shot, Joseph sends over a Public Interest Immunity Certificate to the police station custody suite they are taken to, which results in Inspector Johnston granting the agents immediate release, much to his subordinates chagrin.
40	* TheGreatBritishCopperCapture: A rare inversion. As the series is set in Northern Ireland, all of the police characters carry personal protection weapons (a Glock 17 pistol) both on and off duty, thereby being suitably equipped to respond to any armed criminal intervention.
41	* HotPursuit:
42	** "Colin's Code" opens with Grace and Stevie chasing down Gordy Mackle in James [=McIntyre=]'s stolen car.
43	** "Love the One You're With" opens with the pursuit of MI-5 counter-terrorism operatives as they try and exit the scene where [[spoiler:Gerry was shot]].
44	* IdiotBall: The [=MI5=] officers and their leader make several bad decisions and bear some of the responsibility for the events that take place in the series.
45	** For starters, one of the cars that they use, a ten-year-old VW Passat, has a newer license plate. This attracts Gerry's attention when the car passes in front of him and prompts a traffic stop.
46	** The driver of the Passat, an undercover officer, is a SmugSnake who acts unprofessionally. [[spoiler:This gets him and his partner arrested after running from an officer-involved shooting and punched in the face by one of Gerry's colleagues when they're forced to let them go. Later on, they're both [[LaserGuidedKarma taken off field duty]] and assigned to protect Gordy and Sarah Mackle.]]
47	** When [[spoiler:an undercover op goes south and Gerry gets shot]], the same undercover officer and his partner are ordered to evacuate. Instead of calmly and quietly making their way out and blending in with city traffic, the driver instead speeds recklessly down narrow streets in the same VW Passat. This gets the attention of police officers responding to an [[spoiler:officer-involved shooting]] and refuses to pull over despite armed police officers in pursuit.
48	** Their leader all but bullies his liaison, Jonty, into issuing [=OOBs=] without giving him a reason why that he could give his officers. The police officers under his command bristle and break said [=OOBs=] more than once, eventually leading to [[spoiler:Gerry's death, James and Mo's arrest, and Jonty's resignation]] over the whole mess.
49	* InSeriesNickname: Gerry calls the undercover [=MI5=] officers the "sneaky beakys".
50	* InternalAffairs: Unlike other police forces, where complaints against officers are investigated, at least in the first instance, by other cops, the PSNI is answerable to the Office of the Police Ombudsman, an independent public body.
51	** "Full Moon Fever" is framed around a series of preliminary interviews conducted by Geraldine Gilroy, who's brought in to investigate an Article 2 incident that happened the previous night.
52	** "This Too Shall Pass" again see's Geraldine Gilroy questioning Grace after she drew her weapon on, and nearly shot, a suspect.
53	* TheIrishMob:
54	** The [=McIntyres=] work with Irish gangster Eoin O'Sullivan from Dublin as part of their drug-dealing business.
55	** [[spoiler: After O'Sullivan is killed, both Tina [=McIntyre=] and Lee Thompson work with Fogerty, O'Sullivan's cousin and successor, in supplying drugs to Belfast]].
56	* IronicNickname: Happy, given that he suffers from debilitating depression as a result of childhood trauma.
57	* JaywalkingWillRuinYourLife: When Stevie and Grace arrest the [=MI5=] operatives fleeing the scene of [[spoiler: Gerry's murder]], the lead agent Mark Blundell asks what he is being arrested for. After a brief pause, Stevie tells him it is for "dangerous driving".
58	* JurisdictionFriction: Trying to police an area also under surveillance by [=MI5=] is a major source of conflict throughout the show.
59	* {{Kneecapping}}: [[spoiler:JP Junior]] gets kneecapped for dealing outside his designated patch.
60	* LawmanBaton: Carried by all officers in addition to their pistols, and usually the first option for use of force.
61	* LoanShark: One of several criminal enterprises Davy Hamill's loyalist gang runs on the Mount Eden estate. When [[spoiler: Lee Thompson]] takes over, he speaks with a young mother who was loaned £900, but over a year later still owes over £1000 back due to high interest rates.
62	* MamaBear: After[[spoiler:JP Junior]] gets shot, Mo shows up as he and his family are about to move away in a failed attempt at intimidation. His mother comes right up to him and tells him that if he ever hurts her son again, she'll kill him.
63	* MassOhCrap: Mo and the others who aren't [[spoiler:Sully]] have one when he [[spoiler:shoots Gerry, a police officer. This is followed immediately by everyone pulling a ScrewThisImOutOfHere when Jen comes out, shooting and killing Sully.]]
64	* MinorityPoliceOfficer: PC Grace Ellis is an English woman originally from Staffordshire, unlike her probationary and experienced colleagues who are all from Northern Ireland.
65	* NewMeat: Grace Ellis, Annie Conlon, Tommy Foster and Jen Robinson are all probationary constables.
66	* OffOnATechnicality: The police actually manage to pull one off in their favour in "Full Moon Fever." [[spoiler:Chief Superintendent Robinson reveals that Geraldine did not get the correct written authorisation to carry out her Article 2 investigation, thereby voiding all the interviews she had just done with the officers at the station.]]
67	* OldCopYoungCop:
68	** Sergeant Helen [=McNally=] and PC Annie Conlon.
69	** PC Gerry Cliff (who is later revealed to be a former Special Branch ''Inspector'' who was demoted due to his dissatisfaction with the groups actions in the lead up to the Good Friday Agreement) and fast track PC Tommy Foster.
70	** Played with with PC Stevie Neil and PC Grace Ellis. Although they are roughly the same age, they have this dynamic as Grace is a probationer and former social worker who decided to join the police in her forties whereas Stevie is a training officer with many years of experience.
71	* OldFashionedCopper: Part of the show's draw is meant to be showing how policing in Northern Ireland deviates from the more benevolent image of the OldFashionedCopper, mostly with the use of weapons. Unlike the rest of the UK, all officers (including the probationers) carry firearms. At the start of the series, Tommy's at risk of not passing out at all because he's such a terrible shot. If he were trying to become a regular beat cop in any other police service in the UK, this wouldn't be a major issue. The opening episode also shows that in addition to the officer's sidearms, the patrol cars all have a massive rifle in the boot that can be used as a secondary weapon.
72	* PetTheDog: After [[spoiler:the shooting]] Jen finally comes clean about why she started the affair with Jonty, admits that she used him, and encourages him to not leave his wife and children.
73	* PoliceBrutality:
74	** Annie bashes the nose of [[AssholeVictim a man she's arrested for sexual assault]] into the roof of her patrol car while trying to get him into the back seat.
75	** [[spoiler: Stevie]] loses his cool and chokes Jim Dixon whilst arresting him after he tries to assault Grace during a stop and search.
76	* PoliceAreUseless: {{Deconstructed\|Trope}} in "Full Moon Fever" where the lack of [[CriticalStaffingShortage manpower]] and resources leads directly to members of the public being harmed. Explored again in "This Too Shall Pass", when lack of available custody cells results in an offender not being arrested, resulting in him committing a more violent offense later in the day.
77	* PolicePig: The standard derogatory term for police officers in Northern Ireland is "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Peel Peelers]]".
78	* PreMortemOneLiner: [[spoiler:Craig [=McQuarrie=]]] gets one on [[spoiler: Jim Dixon before he shoots him dead in his own house]].
79	->[[spoiler:'''Craig:''']] [[spoiler: Close your eyes. It's easier.]]
80	* ProtectionRacket: One of the many criminal schemes run by loyalist Jim Dixon on the Mount Eden estate. [[spoiler: Before he usurps him]], Lee Thompson is forced to pay him £500 ''a week'' in order to keep his pub and taxi company safe.
81	* PursueTheDreamJob: Grace finally decides to bite the bullet and become a police officer in her early forties, after a previously successful career as a social worker.
82	* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Helen delivers one to Jonty about him and Jen when she discovers that the two of them have been [[spoiler: having an affair. Jen is selfish is only using Jonty so that she can have an easy time at the station. Helen also points out that Jonty's put himself in a position where Jen could easily turn on him and say that their relationship wasn't one between two consenting adults but a case of SexualExtortion]].
83	* RenegadeSplinterFaction: The death threat against Annie has apparently come from some vaguely defined "dissident Republicans".
84	* SexAtWork: [[spoiler:Jonty and Jen]] have sex in the station's first aid room, where they are overheard by Helen.
85	* ShoutOut: Stevie plays The Bonnevilles when it's his turn to pick the music in his and Grace's patrol car.
86	* ShownTheirWork: While the PSNI vehicle decals are different from the actual ones, the PSNI insignia/uniforms/gear are actually in use with the force.
87	* SleepingWithTheBoss: PC Jen Robinson is revealed to be in a sexual relationship with Inspector David "Jonty" Johnston, which explains his preferential treatment of her such as allowing her to stay in the station and do administrative work instead of going out on patrols. She later confesses to him that it was simply because she was bored and used him to make her own life easier.
88	* StrawMisogynist: DS Murray Canning, especially to his subordinate female colleagues.
89	* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:
90	** [[spoiler:Jonty]] is compelled to resign after the incident that left [[spoiler:Gerry dead]], his failure to properly document his interactions with [=MI5=], his failure to tell his officers the bare minimum about the [=OOBs=] and [[spoiler:his affair with Jen.]]
91	** It doesn't matter if you're an undercover agent. If you're driving a car recklessly through narrow public streets, lead police on a pursuit and refuse to stop, they will keep pursuing you and they will catch you and put you under arrest. Nor are they going to let you go solely on your word. Especially if you were running from where [[spoiler:a police officer got shot and later died.]]
92	** [[spoiler:Jen,]] having gone through the trauma of losing [[spoiler:Gerry to a shooting that she was directly involved in]] finally comes to realize that she can not continue to be a police officer and resigns.
93	** It doesn't matter what "they" owe you, if it's not a legally-binding agreement, the people you made a deal with can change the rules and conditions any time they want to. [[spoiler:James [=McIntyre=] and Mo end up getting arrested instead of extracted after their mishandling of the operation is held over their leader's head.]]
94	** [[spoiler:The shooting death of a police officer]] is guaranteed to put a target on the backs of the shooter, his accomplices and anyone else present [=OOBs=] be damned. It also immediately results [[spoiler:in the death of the shooter at the hands of his partner.]]
95	** Unlike her predecessor, [[spoiler: Tina [=McIntyre=] ]] is not a push-over and is clearly going to be far more careful in her dealings with [=MI5=].
96	* SWATTeam: Although all officers in Northern Ireland carry sidearms for personal protection, there is still a specialist Armed Response Unit of officers trained in a greater variety of weapons (including less-lethal and Taser) available for more serious violent incidents.
97	* SwissBankAccount: The counter-terrorism group has one for the [=McIntyre=] family in the event of an extraction.
98	* TakenOffTheCase: Jonty bars Grace from having any further interaction with Angela Mackle after [[spoiler:Joseph tells Jonty that Angela Mackle is OOB]].
99	* ThereAreNoTherapists:
100	** Gerry knows that Happy needs proper psychiatric help, but tries to help him out wherever he can because he knows how unlikely it is that Happy will ever be able to access that help.
101	** Nicola remarks to Jen that she never sought any professional help after [[spoiler: shooting dead Eoin O'Sullivan after he killed Gerry]], and instead chose to bury herself in her new work as a solicitor seeking justice for those who were wronged in The Troubles.
102	* TomatoSurprise: It isn't until the end of "Bad Batch" that we find out that [[spoiler:Gerry and Sandra are married]].
103	* TooDumbToLive:
104	** Tragically, [[spoiler:Gerry]], who went into an area that he wasn't supposed to be in, alone and without backup, gets [[spoiler:shot by Eoin O'Sullivan, and later dies.]]
105	** Then, [[spoiler:Eoin O'Sullivan]] finds out the hard way why [[spoiler:shooting a police officer]] is an ''incredibly stupid'' thing to do. Seconds after [[spoiler:Jen hears the shots, she comes into the fray and [[KarmicDeath kills him]].]] In any case, even though he didn't know, [[spoiler:shooting a police officer who later dies]] in broad daylight and in an area under surveillance by MI-5 counter-terrorism is as dumb as it gets.
106	* WesternTerrorists: Nationalist paramilitaries are present and happy to use the iconography of the IRA, like balaclavas and kneecapping, but are far more interested in selling drugs than planting bombs or shooting police officers. This is realistic, as paramilitaries on both sides have used it as a major income source (sometimes cooperating in this), while other factions have engaged in vigilante targeting of dealers.
107	* YouDoNotHaveToSayAnything: The first episode features Grace delivering a caution that varies slightly from the usual version seen in [[PoliceProcedural cop shows]] set in England:

Context Series / BlueLights